Tesco to move away from deals in BWS shake-up

Tesco’s new category director for beers and spirits has vowed to move away from heavy discounting and try to reconnect with jaded shoppers through a greater range of new products.

A shake-up among Tesco’s senior BWS team has seen Dan Jago move to the role of UK and group wine director and Gavin Warburton promoted to the top job in beer and spirits.

Warburton told OLN: “We have been too wedded to promotional deals. We want to bring it back to the customers, who are tell- ing us they are not interested in them now.

“There is a trend moving away from volume. Instead of buying Foster’s and Strongbow crates people are trying world beer and moving away from deals.

“Customers are telling us they want more exciting, engaging products. The industry needs to find a way of getting these products to market quickly.”

Warburton wants the BWS aisles to feel more like the deli counter.

He said: “Our fixtures are a little too one- dimensional in approach. We need to treat BWS a bit differently. We want customers to feel like they can browse and increase their repertoire.

“We are trying to make the environment more comfortable, really taking cues from the on-trade. Those guys are masters in creating an environment where people will experiment with different products.”

Warburton believes spirits will continue to go from strength to strength at Tesco. “Customers are more engaged in the cat- egory but there’s still huge potential,” he said. “In our Express stores spirits don’t perform as well because they are behind the counter, so we are trialling moving them out on to the shop floor. We will accelerate that if it drives the right behaviour.”

He added: “This year we have had great seasonal events like Euro 2012, the Olympics and the Jubilee and we will have none of that next year, so we need to architect new events and we want suppliers to work with us to create events we can focus on.

“We want to increase NPD, embrace tech-nology and have a different offering in different stores based on affluence.

“What we really need is some good weather.”

Jago said: “I have thoroughly enjoyed working with our beer, cider and spirit suppliers during the last six years and will be sad to give up this side of the business.

“However, I look forward to developing my career in this new international role.”

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